The Loner’s Guide to Artist Tribes

The truth is, I’m afraid to write this post. I put it off as long as I could, because my tendency has always been towards solitude. I’ve never considered myself an expert on making friends or building communities.

In high school, while other girls skipped class to run in giggling packs around the mall, I skipped class to read novels in my room. I’ve eaten more than a few lunches on my own.

“Tribalism,” its importance, and how to engage in it are things I’m still learning. I had to write this, though, because the extent to which I have surrounded myself with like-minded people has done a lot to increase my creative confidence.

We need teachers and mentors to show the way, help correct course, avoid missteps and shorten the distance from idea to impact.

We need champions to hold us up when we stumble (and we will, more than we’d like) and reconnect us with our own vision and deeper drivers when we get lost in the smaller picture.

We need crusaders to hold us accountable when we most want to bail (which inevitably is a heartbeat from our next big move), and continue to act when things get hard (and they always will).

We need parallel-playmates(I have to interject here, because “parallel-playmates” sounds a bit too kinky, I think, for our purposes at the moment; I prefer the term “parallel peers”) building their own ventures alongside us, sharing in the emotions, questions, struggles and triumphs that bond us for life and let us know that we’re truly felt, seen and understood. Because we are them, and they are us.

True enough. But for those of us who regenerate our energies by turning inwards rather than by immersing ourselves in crowds, the idea of assembling such an all-star team sounds exhausting.

That’s alright. You don’t have to be Mr. or Ms. Popular to build your tribe.

The loner’s guide to tribalism:

If you’re like me, you might find it easier to seek people out individually rather than in crowds, and

to do it gradually, rather than all at once.

You might find that opening yourself up in new ways to people you already know allows them to help you like they never could before. My Aunt Brenda Carre has always been a writer, but she didn’t really become a mentor for me until a few years ago, when I began sharing with her my own hopes, dreams and goals for writing, as well as showing more of an interest in her work. My sister, the novelist and singer/songwriter Celeste Lovick, became my “parallel peer” when we started exchanging stories and providing feedback on each other’s fiction.

Online communities are a great place to find tribespeople, especially for those who live in small towns, or who, like me, spend a lot of time travelling. I met my friend, parallel peer, champion and crusader, the “neophyte philosopher” Niki Shmikis, through Fizzle, * an online educational community for creative entrepreneurs. I’ve found several other parallel peers in the Live Your Legend Creator’s Guild, a Facebook group for bloggers, podcasters, and other online makers.

Find teachers and mentors via online courses. I’ve always cringed at the thought of sitting down over a super-awkward lunch and stammering, “Will you be my mentor?” to an actual person in the real world. I have, however, taken online writing classes from Holly Lisle, Dean Wesley Smith, and Tara Gentile (whose CreativeLive course,* “How to Write and Publish an eBook”, is largely responsible for the fact that my first non-fiction book, Creative Confidence, will be released this July). I’ve never met any of them, and they’ve all become my cherished mentors.

Of course, even I can admit there’s something to be said for introducing ourselves to other physical humans in the in-person world. One of the best ways to do that is through attending workshops, conferences and events for which people like you are the target audience. My Auntie Brenda attends several writer’s conferences every year. In 2014, she let me tag along with her at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference. My heart swelled with joy as I sat with hundreds of other writers in the banquet hall while Jack Whyte* led us in a rousing rendition of “The Hippopotamus Song“. I thought, Man, these people are weird… I totally belong here.

Some of my people having dinner at my family’s cabin. I’m lucky to be able to count my parents, siblings, and partner among my “champions”.

It’s also, as Sarah J. Bray points out, a way to increase the quality and efficiency of what we make. She writes, “collaborating with our communities not only helps us get people to care, but also fixes many of the other problems associated with doing creative work. It gives us accountability, so we’re more likely to follow through with our ideas. It gives us instant feedback from the people who will be using what we’ve made, so we spend less time on ideas that aren’t going to work and more time on ideas that will. It simplifies our process, so we don’t have to see ‘doing the work’ and ‘making people care about it’ as two separate jobs.”

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4 Comments

I totally agree with your definition of a tribe. We often, to avoid being alone, become part of groups where we don’t belong. Diversity is important in our tribes, but they should be held together by the thin thread of the desire to create something magnificent. Then, diversity allows us to create something unique and look at our work through fresh eyes.